Stock By Attributes & Attribute order

This is a two parter I think:
(I've searched threads and I can't see where this has been addressed and solved if it has been)

1. On my Attributes by stock page I need the 'Stock Id' to be what the attributes are sorted by and as far as I can tell, the sql in the admin/products_with_attributes_stock.php says to do just that (around line 310 it says ORDER_BY stock_id ASC) and it queries what I believe to be the correct table. However, it's not sorting it and I'm not sure why.

2. Regarding the actual product page on the online store, despite having set the default sort order in the options values it's not doing it and actually, it's not doing it even the by option id either (even though that isn't what I need but even so, it's not even doing that)?

UPDATE: my 2nd concern was taken care of, apparently I've never known about the updating option in the attribute controller tab... Sorry :blush:

UPDATE 2: Part one has sort of been answered. I had to first select the 'sort' feature (durrrrrr) but is there any way to make this the default?

I've got the same issue with sorting as in part 1. It sure would be nice to have a solution for this.